With the recently-announced news of Boards of Canada vinyl re-pressings forthcoming from Warp during autumn 2013, here's a round-up of all they've created. All previous albums and EP releases will be re-pressed on wax, accompanied by download code and a sticker repro from the era.
Music Has The Right To Children
Original Release 1998
2 x LP
Includes: Telephasic Workshop, Pete Standing Alone, Turquoise Hexagon Sun, An Eagle In Your Mind etc
The Scottish duo's debut-album is as unsettling and un-nerving an inaugural release as you could wish to hear with much to recommend it. Twisted samples, giddy electronics, sinister minor-key backdrops and the sort of music you'd expect to see sound-tracking a TV series about a mad axe-murderer in the Cairngorms or Mojave Desert. The insistent beats of Telephasic Workshop rub shoulders with eerie stretched vocal snippets of kids repeating nursery rhymes on The Color Of The Fire, while the lurking lurching footstep rhythms of Turquoise Hexagon Sun sound like a precursor to some terrifying Chris Morris parody about the end of your life at the hands of a deranged stalker. If the album suffers from anything its that some tracks are too short - you want to know how each short piece would sound like if lengthened to something more than just two minutes. Too many interludes, perhaps, but worth purchasing. 8/10.
Geogaddi
Original Release 2002
3 x LP
Includes: Music Is Math, 1969, Alpha And Omega, You Could Feel The Sky, Over The Horizon Radar etc
Album number two is a huge leap-forward from Children - where the briefest of pieces confounded before, on Geogaddi they help to glue the entire album together perfectly. Over The Horizon Radar is as beautiful as it gets, while Opening The Mouth breathlessly drifts from ear to ear like some bedouin choir on heat. The lengthier selections still edge it for me though, such as the spacey dervish created by Alpha And Omega or the disorientating gallop of Gyroscope with the sound palette being broadened by BoC considerably. 1969 is perhaps the nearest thing to a crossover tune here, but even this is off-kilter, out-of-key and funereal in places, while the entire album's axis is disturbed by the frankly apparitional Devil Is In The Detail. Their best album. 9/10.
The Campfire Headphase
Original Release 2005
2 x LP
Includes: Dayvan Cowboy, Tears From The Compound Eye, Farewell Fire, Oscar See Through Red Eye etc
Perhaps the most 'organic' album of BoC's canon is the least engaging. Sure, there are some superb moments included such as the blistering psychedelic single Dayvan Cowboy and Tears From The Compound Eye, but much of Campfire misfires, mainly down to the lack of the pretty, yet unsettling, melodies we've been used to on previous releases. But there's still enough to warrant attention although sadly it seems bonus CD track Macquarie Bridge might be missing from this vinyl version (it's a superior piece as well). But you do get the warped mid-tempo shuffle that is Chromakey Dreamcoat and the mangled downbeat catharsis of '84 Pontiac Dream, making Campfire an album of slightly more plusses than minuses. OK, a good few more. 7/10.
Also being reissued - In A Beautiful Place Out In The Country EP (well worth having for the title track and the superb Amo Bishop Roden - 8/10), Dayvan Cowboy EP (has its moments, especially Under The Coke Sign) and Twoism EP (Early recordings that paved the way for ...Children, mostly excellent 8/10). The even earlier Skam EP (7/10) is also due a reissue on vinyl (via Skam) - keep an eye out for it and a possible reappraisal of Happy Cycling and Peel Session.
Tomorrow's Harvest
Released 2013 - already available on vinyl
3 x LP
9/10 -
"Tomorrow's Harvest is a successful return to the desolate and solitary confines and spaces, conjured up by Boards of Canada's earlier recordings." ....
Full review available, click here
Music Has The Right To Children
Original Release 1998
2 x LP
Includes: Telephasic Workshop, Pete Standing Alone, Turquoise Hexagon Sun, An Eagle In Your Mind etc
Geogaddi
Original Release 2002
3 x LP
Includes: Music Is Math, 1969, Alpha And Omega, You Could Feel The Sky, Over The Horizon Radar etc
The Campfire Headphase
Original Release 2005
2 x LP
Includes: Dayvan Cowboy, Tears From The Compound Eye, Farewell Fire, Oscar See Through Red Eye etc
Also being reissued - In A Beautiful Place Out In The Country EP (well worth having for the title track and the superb Amo Bishop Roden - 8/10), Dayvan Cowboy EP (has its moments, especially Under The Coke Sign) and Twoism EP (Early recordings that paved the way for ...Children, mostly excellent 8/10). The even earlier Skam EP (7/10) is also due a reissue on vinyl (via Skam) - keep an eye out for it and a possible reappraisal of Happy Cycling and Peel Session.
Tomorrow's Harvest
Released 2013 - already available on vinyl
3 x LP
9/10 -
"Tomorrow's Harvest is a successful return to the desolate and solitary confines and spaces, conjured up by Boards of Canada's earlier recordings." ....
Full review available, click here
